This invention relates to an electrical connector element in the form of a shell of generally cylindrical shape, and especially to a coaxial connector body with a crimp barrel part and to the manufacture of such body.
A coaxial connector body, or outer coaxial contact of a coaxial connector, is typically formed of sheet metal. The body includes a rear crimp barrel part for crimp connection to a coaxial cable outer conductor, and also includes a forward connector part for mating with another connector. An insulator lies within the connector body and an inner coaxial contact lies within the insulator and connects to the inner conductor of the coaxial cable.
In general, the crimp barrel of the coaxial connector body, is attached to a coaxial cable outer conductor, by use of a ferrule. The coaxial cable outer conductor, which is often in the form of a braid, is placed around the crimp barrel, and the ferrule is placed around the cable outer conductor. A tool compresses the ferrule to crimp the cable outer conductor between the ferrule and the crimp barrel part of the body. The crimp barrel part should undergo plastic deformation during crimping, so the coaxial cable conductor is securely fixed between the ferrule and crimp barrel. To prevent resilient deformation or resilient collapse of the crimp barrel, its adjacent edges should not ride one over the other.
One way to avoid the edges of the crimp barrel from riding over one another, is to use thick sheet metal. However, where the front part of the body forms a socket with resilient fingers, such fingers should be of thin sheet metal, which would be incompatible with thick sheet metal for the crimp barrel. Previously, such connector bodies have been formed by separate construction of the socket part and crimp barrel part, which had to be fixed together, at increased cost. It would be desirable if the crimp barrel part and connector part of a coaxial connector body could be constructed of a single thin piece of sheet metal, with the crimp barrel part constructed to avoid resilient collapse by one edge riding over the other. Such construction could be useful for any other electrical connector element wherein a piece of sheet metal is rolled into a largely cylindrical shape.